I went back to swim training tonight for the first time since before Christmas. I have been practising over the holidays – I promise. It was easier before New Year, when everyone was too drunk, too hungover or too busy searching for extra-wide foil to go swimming. 

Twice I had the pool entirely to myself. Fine if you’re indistinguishable from a dolphin but I felt decidedly awkward trundling inelegantly up and down the pool on my own with a lean, tanned and pitying lifeguard pretending not to watch. 

But my quiet evenings in the pool are no more. Since New Year the pool has been as nose to tail as the M56 on a Monday morning. If some of the Resolutioners don’t pack up soon I’ll have to contemplate hauling myself out of bed for the 7am sessions. Just contemplating it is bad enough. I am not a morning person. 

AminArt: Sporting Greats &emdash; Rebecca Romero


(This picture is not me. It’s a stunning photo of Olympian and and Ironman athlete Rebecca Romero by the fabulously talented photographer Amin.  

But, come July, this will be me. Sort of. I will slip sleekly   into the River Dee in July in a wetsuit and swim 750m smoothly to my waiting bike. I have to believe that…)






Christmas brought me a sparkly new gadget – A Poolmate Pro watch which magically counts my strokes, measures my lap times and confronts me with my poor efficiency. I tried it out in the front room on Christmas Day, stretched out on my stomach on the fat arm of the sofa. I mimicked the arm movement of a textbook front crawl (it’s easy without the water getting in the way) then pretended to stop, turn and repeat a few times. It confidently informed me that I had swum four laps in world record time and at a stroke rate that an Olympian would be proud of. I loved it immediately. It works a treat in the pool too, despite some sceptical reviews. 

I am not a ‘drill’ sort of person. If I liked drills I’d have joined the army. But I’ve slowly understood that technique is everything in swimming. So I’ve been trying a few drills suggested by Steve at Warrington Tri Club. Swimming with one arm – quite marvellously with my right and abysmally with my left – and swimming ‘catch up’, in which you make your hands catch up with one another between strokes out in front of you. It’s designed to make you swim straight, rather than weave around. I rather like it as a technique, to the extent that that’s pretty much how I swim now. Straight, but slow. Very slow. Slow is good – to a point…. 

So, tonight was a bit of a test to see whether I’ve improved. On the plus side, the pool seems a little shorter than it was a month ago. I can string about three lengths together before needing a breather, which is a a mere 27 lengths short of the number I’ll need to do in July. I’ve also ditched the nose clips – I can’t rely on keeping them on in the ruck of a triathlon start so best to get used to swimming without them.
I managed about 45 lengths in total – one or two of which verged on competent. That should feel quite good, except that the training session set out for my (beginners) lane was around 70 lengths. I’m not sure yet if I really can’t do that or if I’m not trying hard enough. Somewhere between the two, probably…..  

Anyway, the ever-patient coach Steve Hibbert observed that I had noticeably improved from my first session, before sliding into the water and effortlessly gliding away from me in a froth of turquoise bubbles. 

(Update:15/1/13. I went swimming at 7.30 this morning… It took half an hour or so before the vague notion that I might go swimming solidified into getting up, finding a towel and realising that I really was going. It was -2C out and the car doors were glued stuck with ice. The stars were still out in an inky blue sky to the north. The receptionist was yawning and sipping a hot chocolate. And the pool – warm, brightly lit and inviting in defiance of the cold. Just six of us quietly gliding up and down and I swam better than I’ve ever done before.)

And finally… If you kind of enjoyed this and feel like reading a far better blog about swimming, try this… Swimming round London..


January 12, 2013